


Better In Time

by paladindanse



Series: Clockwork Hearts [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Blind Betrayal spoilers, Introspection, M/M, paladin danse spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-09
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-05-05 19:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5387207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paladindanse/pseuds/paladindanse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danse reflects on a soured memory, and tries to look toward his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better In Time

**Author's Note:**

> sighs. this was originally going to include ship tease for preston/m!ss/danse, but alas, it just ended up dragging the story. trying to get back into writing after a long time of absolutely nothing I: unbeta'd, please don't hesitate to let me know of any errors.

The Prydwen hovered over the Commonwealth shores like a bloatfly over a puddle. Waiting and barely contained violence; Danse watched it, fearful, imagining large black eyes bulging out of the top if it. Searching the wasteland for 'undesirables' – for ghouls, super mutants, synths.

For him.

He couldn't think about how he felt when he first saw it breach the skyline all those months ago. About how he'd eagerly returned, shucking his power armor when he had a free moment aboard. Haylen had cracked a joke about how that was the longest he'd been out of his armor since they reached the Commonwealth; she'd even reached up, on her toes, ruffling his hair playfully before tottering off to handle her own personal business.

Danse himself had headed to another part of the ship. Arthur's room – not the overhanging deck he often stood on to watch the world down below him, but to his actual room. There were… minor luxuries here, not like the rest of the ship; a private desk and terminal, a timed shower, a nicer bed, a thicker comforter. Things Arthur hated because Arthur was a practical man down to his core.

He didn't mind standing out, he just didn't like it.

Danse didn't mind. The bed was private. The room was colder than others, but quieter, isolated. And it was the only place he wanted to be right then and there. Eager and excited, he cleaned himself up quickly while Arthur barely paid him any attention. Danse didn't mind. He knew he himself was antsy – so many months away, and now this, without any warning or radio call. Had they tried to contact them? Sent out any signals? It didn't matter. It didn't matter.

It didn't matter. Not anymore.

Danse paused a few seconds in the shower stall, letting the water drip off of him. It was the cleanest he'd felt in a long time. The Commonwealth had a way of staining you; it got under your nails, in your ears, between the cracks of your toes. A good, decent scrubbing and Danse felt like he'd never stepped foot in the Wasteland in his life.

All that in only five minutes. And when he turned, Arthur was there. Waiting. His face was – not softer. Not gentler. But sadder, almost. A weight to it that Danse felt in his bones and when Arthur opened his arms to welcome him, Danse did not hesitate to step close and press against him.Even the uncomfortable cold of the room melted away when held so tightly. Arthur wasn't a small man. His shoulders were broad and his chest was wide and he was warm through and through and to Danse, that felt like coming home.

They didn't linger there. Arthur pulled him to the bed, and under the comforter, kicking his own boots off as Danse crawled in beside him against the wall. Arthur had pulled his clothes off as well, pausing every so often to steal a kiss, and Danse had eagerly opened his arms and his legs when Arthur had lay back down beside him.

God, but it was so nice. Letting himself be explored like that. A mouth he hadn't tasted in months and a voice that had grown as distant as dreams gave kisses and compliments in turn – calling him beautiful while pressed against his lips, darling breathed over the corner of his mouth, an 'I missed you, I missed you so, so much' seeping from tired tongue into the skin of his throat.

Danse had never been good with words. He supposed that's why he wasn't a leader, not in the same sense – just a paladin. Just a soldier. Instead he offered what he had – his moans, his heavy breathing, his kisses. His hands groping desperately at the nape of Arthur's neck and the broad expanse of his shoulders as Arthur rolled him onto his back; his thighs open, parted as they rutted together. After so long apart, all it really took was one of Arthur's strong hands stroking them together and a sudden, sharp bite to his shoulder before he was bucking up, cumming over their stomachs and Arthur's hand.

It had been beautiful, then. A tainted memory, now. Danse couldn't touch his own body for too long without remembering it. Couldn't scrub himself clean in the rivers and lakes they camped by; couldn't wash his face without feeling like he was touching something that didn't quite belong to him. Mirrors were a nightmare, too. How could he look at himself, after that? Arthur could barely look at him, and he did only that with a sneer and a threat. And now – staring at the Prydwen, remembering the cold metal under his feet, against his back, remembering that bed and those hands and those kisses –

Well. It was a good, cruel joke, wasn't it.

He scrubbed at his tired eyes absently and leaned on the concrete barrier of the Castle's wall. It was a good fortress. The Minutemen had picked well. He had to think that, to tell himself that, because he knew there was no going back to the Prydwen. It hovered, like the memories; just distant enough to see, but not enough to touch, and not comforting in the least. He let out a sigh, then a huff, and bowed his head against the ocean spray. He missed it. He missed his power armor. He missed his cramped cot. He missed the food, the mess hall, Proctor Ingram, missed the knights and other paladins doing stupid shit to amuse themselves. He missed it all.

He missed Arthur.

Every time he remembered that, he forced himself to stop looking. Stop staring longingly at the Prydwen; to turn away, and look back at the Castle. There was no future for him in Arthur's hands, save perhaps the kind that ended with a knife across the throat. And there were no answers about himself, either.

No. Those things were here. In the concrete walls of the Castle, in the soft sands and rolling waves behind him. In the water, the salted air, the earth. His future was in the Commonwealth and – he was still loathe to admit – in the people there. He was no longer Brotherhood, but it seemed ridiculous to lose sight of what he had joined for. A better future, for everyone. He'd have to broaden his definition of the word, certainly… but it was there.

He would find it.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu at http://brotherhoodpaladindanse.tumblr.com/ for more disasters like this


End file.
